The democratisation of mail

Today, we take it for granted that postage is uniform and affordable. But the introduction of the Penny Postprompted an unprecedented expansion in the popularity of mail, as it became affordable to many people for the first time. 67 million letters were posted in 1839, 242 million by 1844 after the introduction of the Penny Post. By 1875 the number had risen to over a billion. In 1947 Royal Mail handled a staggering 23,000,000 letters a day according to an iconic publicity poster from that time.